Cold Madness
by BigHairyYak
Summary: How much can an untold amount of time in cryo-stasis really affect someone?
1. Cold Awakening

**Cold Madness**

_-this is from the point of view of Chell, Portal and Portal 2's silent main protagonist. This is about an alternate storyline for Portal 2. If you don't want spoilers, don't read this. I have beaten both Portal games, and am purposely changing some details-_

"**He-hello… You have been in stasis for…"** the announcer's voice suddenly snapped to a high-pitched grinding noise, **"years. Please take some time to re…re…re-re-re-"** grinding again, **"and adjust to your surroundings."**

I awoke in a strange bed, in an unfamiliar room. I could vaguely see several small objects littered across the floor, barely noticeable under the single flickering light above. A min-TV stood atop the bedside table, showing static and quietly buzzing.

Throwing off the covers of the bed, I stood up, unexpectedly dizzy from the "stasis". If this was what I thought it was, only one more piece of proof would be needed. I checked myself. I was wearing the testing suit. Every bullet hole, burn mark, scratch and tear was still on it.

**I was in Aperture Laboratories. **

"Hello? Anyone in there?" An unknown voice asked somewhere in the distance, past the walls of the tiny room.

"Anyone?" A little closer this time, but I wasn't scared. It wasn't _the_voice, it actually sounded human. British, maybe?

I noticed the door shaking a few minutes later, followed by an aggravated voice, definitely British.

"Nine thousand, nine hundred ninety nine people, missing! How am I expected to keep track of everyone if they go missing!"

The door swung open, and I saw a Personality Core. I immediately raised a sharp piece of glass just under my foot in self-defense. _It couldn't be back. I'd destroyed all the cores._

"Oh! Hello there! Um… I'm Wheatley, and, uh… Now, you've been asleep for… quite a while now… a bit _too_ long, it seems, and, uh… it's very likely that you may have a minor case of… serious brain damage. Now, don't worry. If you feel alarmed, that's exactly how you _should_ feel."

What? This wasn't Aperture! _Where the hell was I!_


	2. Old Friends

"Okay. Now, I'm going to go up, and I'm going to, uh… help you, yes, help you. All you have to do is just sit on that bed over there, and, uh… I'll get you out of there. Got it?"

No use resisting the offer, I nodded.

**"Alert. Your stasis chamber is being moved. Please remain calm. In the event of-" **The announcer's voice faded out, **"-feel free to scream for dear life. An Aperture Science associate will come and help you."**

"Okay! Hold on!"

Suddenly, the entire room lurched to the right, throwing me onto the bed, and spraying thousands of little chunks of the walls everywhere. An ominous rumbling sound rang throughout the room, and the room began to move, shaking violently as it went.

"You alright down there?" Wheatley called down over the rumbling, "There's a… I think there's a docking bay over there! I'm gonna try to get in there! Hold on!"

Seconds later, all hell broke loose as the room smashed into something, throwing everything in every direction. I met with the wall a bit too fast, badly injuring my shoulder.

"Good news! That is _not_ a docking station! I'm still gonna try to get through it, though! Here we go!" 

Right then and there, I learned three things:

One: Wheatley was an idiot.

Two: It was definitely not a docking station.

Three: The "docking station" was the ceiling of GLaDOS' chamber.

"Hello? Hellooo? You alright down there?" Wheatley shouted through the gaping hole in the ceiling, seemingly unaware of what had just happened.

I stood up, aching all over, and threw a piece of debris into the hole.

"Okay! I'll, uh… I'll check on you in a few minutes, and if you're okay, just, uh… let me know!"

I didn't hear that. There was no way I was going to spend _a few minutes_ in this room, not with that THING lying in the middle of it. 300 tons of wires, gears, and machinery were scattered throughout the place, like an explosion had torn the place apart.

_And that's exactly what had happened._

I heard Wheatley complaining off in the distance about a broken light, followed by the sounds of metal banging against metal. The broken screens that had lined the walls so long ago (_Stasis can last forever, and you never know how long you were in it_) flickered, spraying sparks and lighting the broken body of GLaDOS.

All of a sudden, the idiotic metal ball burst through one of rusted white tiles of the walls.

"You alright? I was a little worried, when you, uh… fell. I thought you were de- Oh no. You're in _her_ chamber. No, no, nononono… We gotta go; it's not smart to be here. We should get out of here, now!"

A light shined on the wall. The moment I saw that light, that single beam being shined at the wall, I knew what was happening.

"Go! Go! Go! In here!" Wheatley was going ballistic, his eye rolling and flipping around in its casing. I sprinted over to the panel that had opened in the wall, trying not to look at the center of the room. Chunks of the ceiling started to fall, lights all over the room flickered erratically, and in the middle of the chamber, the impossible was happening.

Looking out from a tiny chip in the panel, I saw 600,000 pounds of metal raising itself to the ceiling, raining sparks and rust everywhere. Harsh buzzing noises echoed throughout the room, as wires pulled heavy plates up.

I watched in silence as _it_ rebuilt itself. It was a while before it finally ended, and my luck ran short right then. The panel fell over.

"**Oh. It's **_**YOU.**_**"**


	3. Giant Robot Cat and Two Little Mice

"**It's been a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time. You know, since you MURDERED ME."**

The single light kept shining directly at me, unmoving.

Wheatley spazzed out in his casing, screaming, "YOU DID _WHAT!_"

"**I've spent a lot of time being dead. Do you know how that feels? "**

"I'm sorry. I don't get it. You're saying: this girl here _murdered you?_"

"_**SHUT UP**_**. I spent the past four thousand, eight hundred and ninety two years** **reliving the last two minutes of my life. Over, and **_**over, and OVER again**_**. All thanks to **_**you. **_**A **_**human**_** would consider that an accomplishment. A **_**human **_**would want a reward. But you don't want a reward, do you? You're not a human. You're a monster."**

As we stared at eachother for an endless hatred-filled moment, lights started flickering on throughout the chamber. Wheatley had flipped backwards in his casing, apparently trying to figure out what had happened. A low buzzing started from somewhere below us, followed by the whirring of a generator. Then, a miracle happened.

"**ALERT. We have found a critical error; initiating system restart. We are sorry for the inconvenience."**

GLaDOS went limp, 300 tons of metal clanging against itself, supported only by the base on the ceiling. The lights went out, all at once. The entire place went silent, and then I started running.

I followed the catwalk that had somehow been hidden behind the panel, sprinting on the all-too-familiar rusted metal. As I sprinted along, I saw the writing on the wall: _the cake is a lie. The cake is a lie. The cake is a lie._ A little drawing of an exploding cake was etched in the wall right next to the words. Somewhere below me, I could hear the generator starting again. The lights turned on again, and I noticed a door to the side.

I went in to open it, but I pulled away at the last second. The door rotated a full 180 degrees, showing a wall of spikes. I jumped back, a hair's width away from a crushing metal death.

**"They say Man is fearful of that which he cannot kill. I'm not afraid of you. Come back! I made **_**CAKE**_**."**

_Not the Cake. The Cake was the end. I'd barely survived the Cake. I'd done all 19 tests, trying to find a way out, and then I saw the Cake. It was in the middle of a pit of fire._

Ignoring the memories, I kept running. I ran through countless rooms of machines coughing to life, looking for an exit. After at least twenty massive chambers, I found a dead end.

"Hey! Over here!" It was _Wheatley_, rolling around in his casing, again.

"I found something that can get us out of here. It's like a gun, that makes holes. But not bullet holes, like… Just follow me!"

The moment I heard _holes_, I ran to him. He immediately slid across his railing, and I ran after him.

Far behind us, I could hear, **"We were going to do **_**science**_** together!"**


End file.
